A little background: In October 2018 when I decided that it was time to sell my pizzeria and move to Florida full time, I also started planning what I call a trip of a lifetime. Being an entrepreneur for much of our married life as well as helping to take care of my parents didn’t leave much time for extended time away from home.
After my mother passed away in 2014, we did start taking one or two week long cruises each year. Dave really loves the Caribbean and warm climates. I was ready to expand our travel horizons. Dave had never been to Europe. During high school, I had participated in the People to People program and had been to several European countries.
One afternoon in October 2018 while I was searching the Internet when I probably should have been doing something else more productive , I found a really great price on a 12 day Mediterranean cruise leaving from Venice, Italy in October 2019. The itinerary included stops in Croatia, Montenegro, several Greek islands, Malta and three Italian ports. The trip ended in Rome, Italy. Well, the port is actually in Civitavecchia which is about 45 minutes from Rome.
Then I start thinking that it takes so long to fly to Europe and we might not be able to get to Europe again very soon, we might as well extend our time over there and see as much as possible. This was way way way before Covid-19. I was just trying to maximize the value from the airfare and travel time. Turns out , it was a wise decision to take the trip in 2019!
My research on cruises leaving Rome on or near the day we would be getting there led me to a 21 day trip which would ultimately end in Dubai, UAE! The only draw back was the 26 hour travel time getting back to the United States from Dubai! And the overall cost of the trip but…. it is only money!
We ended up being gone from home 35 days. I will share more about the trip in future blog posts but I wanted to give you a little background before getting to the point of today’s post!
The Barber Shop
I have really fine hair that grows super fast. Normally, I get my hair cut every 3 weeks and try to color it every 6 to 8 weeks. Since we were gone so long, I had to have my hair cut while we were on the trip. The overall price tag for the trip was pretty steep so I tried to economize in certain areas. The salon on the ship charged quite a bit for a simple cut so I found a barber shop in Limassol Cyprus where I could get my hair cut for a reasonable amount. The language barrier was a bit of a challenge but we worked it out!
Once I got my hair cut, then I needed to refresh the color. Professionally applied color doesn’t seem to last any longer on my hair than color I put on myself. Occasionally, I will splurge and have my color done in a salon but the I felt the ship prices were just really too high. I hadn’t brought any hair color with me, I figured I could just pop into a drug store and pick some up.
I finally found a box of hair color at a drugstore while we were in Israel and took it back to the ship. I also bought a roll of plastic and some cheap towels because I didn’t want to mess up the ship’s towels or get color on the floor. Doing one’s hair color oneself can be a tad messy!
Once I finally got everything ready, I opened the box and discovered that it didn’t have the plastic applicator bottle that normally comes with the hair color kit. And the directions were all in Israeli! Fortunately, I have colored my hair enough that I knew the basic steps and times. I just didn’t have a way to mix or apply the color! I ended up using a glass and a knife and my hands! It was quite the production and I was very very glad I had purchased the plastic and cheap towels!
I managed to get it applied and it ended up looking pretty much how it normally looks!
Relaxing Several Days after My Cut & Color
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